


Creature Feature

by valderys



Category: Merlin (BBC) RPF
Genre: Alternate Canon, Community: kink_bingo, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Colin’s first day in his new costume and Bradley is anticipating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creature Feature

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my leather/latex/rubber square of my Kink_bingo.

It was a pain in the arse, this shoot, Bradley thought, as he held up his large torch and wondered if he'd be bashing heads with it by the end of the day. He'd thought it was a nice gig when he got it, a long series for the BBC, a whole thirteen episodes, and mostly shot in Cardiff, the new Hollywood in terms of British TV production. A kids show but popular with everyone, no Doctor Who but then few things were...

To be fair, the bits they got to film out in France were fantastic. Sun and sea and sand... Well, no, not quite that - _some_ sun, beautiful architecture and wonderful food was closer to the mark but it hardly alliterated, now did it? Was alliterated even a word?

Bradley continued down the slope, aware of the clammy cold, the trickling water underfoot making his progress treacherous. The trouble was, Bradley thought, that most of this bloody shoot wasn't in France, now was it? No, it was in a freezing corrugated iron warehouse in Wales, or here, in the Middle of Nowhere, Kent, in a frigging cave. He reached the bottom and paused for a moment, looking for the guide lights, as his torch sent crazy beams out at all angles.

Trouble was, he couldn't even blame anyone but himself for this - he'd looked over the spec for the location shoot himself. Bradley just hadn't realised what a pig all this damp and cold was going to be - not to mention the chalky mud and slime. Dammit. Who'd be an AD, really? No-one. He decided to conveniently ignore all the slogging and bloody hard work he'd put into his career in order to get precisely here...

When he got to their so-called location Carol, his runner, took one look at Bradley and handed him a cup of tea, for which he was eternally grateful, and was yet another reason why Carol was worth her weight in gold - and also why she probably wouldn't even be around that long. Carol would be going places soon, Bradley reckoned. He gave her a smile before wrapping his hands around the styrofoam cup and wandering over to the set, a loose designation for a different muddy bit of cave and a water tank that was doubling up for the cisterns of Camelot's water supply.

The afanc would be leaping out of this water soon, and the anticipation was making Bradley's mouth water. But rather than thinking about that, like a good AD he checked light levels, camera angles and the sound set-up. He was ready now, he reckoned, for anything Steve the director might throw at him. A different issue occurred to him, one with a more personal aspect, and Bradley dipped his finger in to test the temperature of the water. It was miserably chilly. He frowned, and then went to chivvy anyone that looked like they needed chivvying. He was going to make this bit of their filming go as smoothly as it was possible to make it, or he'd know the reason why.

The actors came on set soon enough and Bradley tweaked things as necessary while Steve rehearsed them. The two boys playing Merlin and Arthur had been fresh out of drama school when the series started, and had needed a lot of rehearsal in the beginning. Bradley had refrained from snorting or rolling his eyes at the newbies because he was a professional, but it had been hard. It wasn't nearly as bad any more though because the pair were fast learners to be fair, but Bradley still moaned about them. He just liked to despise the talent, that was all - it was traditional! Colin told him off for it - because he was an actor too, Bradley supposed, although Colin _really_ worked for a living, in Bradley's opinion, and properly hard, rather than poncing about in a frilly shirt.

Colin was due on set soon, as it happened, and Bradley shouldn't be finding his palms sweating and his mouth dry, but he couldn't help it. He loved Colin, of course he did, the word 'boyfriend' and 'relationship' had even been used once or twice, until Bradley had bowled Colin over and threatened to suffocate him with one of the pillows if he did it again, but that wasn't the point. Today, at long last, Bradley knew that Colin was going to be made up in the afanc costume for the first time. And the anticipation was killing him.

He was so busy pretending unconcern that Bradley almost missed it when Colin actually arrived. The first he was aware of it was when Colin was waddling up to the water tank, with a veritable hoard of make-up artists trailing him like anxious mothers with a particularly ugly child. Bradley found himself swallowing as he contemplated the glory that was his Colin. The suit itself was a sort of dark grey latex overall, but with yellow-green highlights, and a phosphorescent glow about the huge claws and teeth which Bradley knew would show up beautifully under lights. The head itself was blunt and massive, rising from a thick neck, but offering only blind features, no eyes, no nose. When Bradley remembered the slender whiteness that was the real column of Colin's throat and knowing it was encased in such heavy latex right now, he could have sworn he got light-headed for a moment.

Instead he took a breath, and then one more, before pushing through the hoard of make-up mother hens to get to Colin's side. He ignored the rest of the crew, just for a second, ignored the odd wolf whistle and catcall too, because everyone knew about him and Colin, about how Bradley liked to check on his... ok, boyfriend, he admitted it - just before filming commenced. Just to be safe. Just to be careful.

Bradley ignored all of that because he was looking for a quick glimpse of Colin's gorgeous blue eyes inside the suit. After all, he couldn't even touch him. There was nothing _to_ touch because Colin was completely encased, but Bradley did it anyway, leaning in, peering through the massive jaws, down to where he could see Colin's face painted in black make-up so it didn't shine and ruin the effect, down to where he could just make out the corners of Colin's eyes crinkling up into a smile and showing his teeth, brilliant white against the latex. It was a smile that was all for Bradley, but even as he grinned back at Colin, with a slightly conspiratorial air given the cast and crew all around them, even as he did that, Bradley couldn't help himself; he stroked the tip of one latex claw and shivered.

They would still have to wait, Bradley knew. Of course, they would. Until Colin had had his make-up taken off, until all the latex pieces had been carefully peeled away, and the colour scrubbed from his skin. But not long after that, Colin would be free to come and find Bradley, and then they'd go home, and after that...

If Bradley was lucky then Colin would have saved some of the latex pieces from his costume, because they couldn't all be reused - some of them would be too damaged, they always were. The make-up girls were incredibly understanding, although they probably just assumed that he and Colin had some massive collection of memorabilia. It wasn't quite like that though, and Bradley licked his lips as he thought about it. Instead there was spirit gum at home, and solvent, and water based make-up, and then... He swallowed.

If Bradley was _incredibly_ lucky though, Colin would have been able to persuade the girls that he didn't need to take it all off on set in the first place. He would be able to persuade them that he was too tired, that he was a professional who had been doing his own creature kits for years, that he could manage... In that kind of scenario, Bradley wouldn't even be able to drive, he would be too nervous, too jittery, and more than once, in the past, he'd had to just sit in the passenger seat and watch as Colin drove them home, his latex covered arms lumpy, or grey and pebbly, or his face red and rubbery and _alien_. Bradley couldn't help himself on those days. He just had to run his fingers along the joins on Colin's skin, feeling the textures change, the levels of warmth going up and down, the shifts of Colin's bones and muscles, the wrongness of the material. On those days Bradley had a hard time not putting his mouth to those edges right there in public, bending to taste them, to test them, had a hard time waiting until they were home, until they were behind closed doors, before he suckled and bit Colin all over. Until he was being held down and fucked, with an alien _latex_ arm across his chest, or his neck, and the flavour of it greasy and full in his mouth. Or kissing a face that was almost Colin's, but not quite, a stranger with inhuman features, and Colin's blue, blue eyes.

Bradley had a bit of a thing, he knew. But that was ok, he had Colin as well, a Colin who had his own quirks, thank you very much, and who spent his professional life dressed up as all manner of creatures and monsters.

But that was all right, after all. Bradley fucking loved monsters.


End file.
